American Thinker: Bush's Domino Effect

The Bush effect is highly speculative, but there is no doubt that the Freedom Agenda has shaken up the region - to effects both bad and good. The claim that the Cairo speech had anything to do with Iran, however is patently absurd.

American Thinker: Bush's Domino Effect

While Professor Ibrahim credits what he calls the "Obama Effect" for producing the latest outbreak of reform in the Middle East, history will see something quite different: the Bush Effect. Democracy, elections, and freedom in Iraq could not fail to have an impact on the minds of Muslim moderates, especially in Iran. How does a woman or a young person in Iran manage to put up with a medieval tyranny when across the border in Iraq individuals are starting to flourish under the banner of self-determination and liberty?

Barack Obama's rather suspicious early response to the exciting and poignant cry for freedom in Iran should have finally ripped the blinders off of Obama's swooning supporters in the human rights establishment. Truth be told, never does Mr. Obama look as awkward as he does when he's forced to mouth support for "democracy" and "freedom" either at home or abroad. It's not in the nature of a socialist in other words to feel comfortable speaking about these things. Obama, like all socialists, is at his best lecturing, controlling and organizing.

Very few on the left and in the Muslim world will admit that the American liberation of Iraq was the catalyst for a beneficent domino effect in Lebanon and Iran. But they should be reminded that this was George Bush's vision from the beginning. In other words, it was Bush, despite fierce criticism, who believed in a stable Middle East built upon democratic principles. The same belief has animated the thousands of U.S. troops who have helped to implement this vision in Iraq.